Yahoo is all set to launch a brand new search feature, later this week, which is hoped will increase Yahoo’s share of the search engine marketplace. But will the new feature truly challenge Google and increase Yahoo’s active user numbers?

Search Pad is a new cloud based smart tool which will recognise when a user is doing research using search queries from within the Yahoo interface. After three searches for related search queries a small popup will appear and ask if search pad should be taking notes. Search pad will keep a running list of all the sites you have been searching for and have selected, displaying the page title, URL and snippet information. This would be particularly useful if a user was looking to buy a product and wanted to compare prices, reviews and demos. But why is Search Pad a threat to Google?

With the massive growth of the internet and the increase in new indexed websites, search engines have been battling to offer their users more and more relevant information. This has become increasingly difficult and as a result new methods of filtering and displaying content are being investigated. Google is working on personalised search and a number of other similar features and filters. Search Pad is the first indication that Yahoo are looking to refine and improve their search engine results. Search pad itself is a useful and interesting product, but what is more important is the technology behind it and the data which is being recorded and data based. Potentially Yahoo will be able to use Search Pad data to understand search habits, improve related search results and more effectively assess keyword popularity. It is possible that like Google, Yahoo are looking at ways to offer their users personalised search results based on their users specific search habits and demographics. This would potentially dramatically improve the quality of Yahoo’s results.

This is an important first step in Yahoo’s ongoing development and it will be very interesting to see how Yahoo plans to move forward.

Article by Creative SEO

Google Personalised search has not received much press recently but the service is very real and is still being developed and improvements are being made every week.

Personalised search results currently show and increase in search engine position based on user historical search popularity. So in other words the more a user visits a website from Google’s search results, the higher the site will rank within the search results of a future keyword search by that user. We have also noticed an increase in the ranking of pages which are on the same domain as popular search results. Personalised search also allows users to increase the rank of a page manually, to assign their own level of importance. The service can only be used while signed into a Google account. It is also interesting to note that Google is currently displaying a list of search terms which have been used by the personalised search user, to find that specific page and listing. This leads us to surmise that Google is recording this information but for what purpose?

It does seem possible that when Google has enough user data, from personalised search, it could potentially use the data to assign a level of importance and popularity to a website which could then be added into the Google Page Rank algorithm. This could potentially mean that for the first time Page Rank could be based on real time user generated popularity. But this does ask the question “Will this be the death of Page Rank as we know it?” and “Will Search Engine Results be different for each user or will Google amalgamate the data?”

Article by Creative SEO